It had been two years since Avery had completed her transition and ever since then, things had only continued to get better. Not only had she improved greatly with her training, but her relationships with the other children had only grown stronger. They each were pushing one another to become better fighters and no one was more pleased with this outcome than Zeraph.
As she had continued to steadily expand her facilities and bring in new children, she found it easier and easier to relate and interact with the humans that she saw underneath her. While she wasn’t very fond of the vast majority of them still, she was growing to understand them much better and for this, she was quite thankful as it made being Avery’s mother much easier. While Lothia was helpful and she had continued to grow more competent over the years, there were still moments where she was quite totally lost. She found them annoying and it only seemed to have a negative effect on Avery as well, usually sending her in to a bout of anger where she would storm off and hide within her room.
Although she had grown closer with Avery, she did find herself not experiencing the same kind of closeness with any of the other children, even the more talented ones. She believed it to simply be what they called maternal instincts, but for her to have them, it was… odd. Despite that, all signs had pointed to her plan going rather well, so she decided not to pay them any mind.
---
One day, Avery had been enjoying herself quite nicely in the sparring arena, working with the other children to run through some of their usual drills. As usual, she was fighting against four opponents all on her own. Mother believed that the best way for her to grow as a fighter was to constantly be at a disadvantage and so far, she seemed to be rather correct. Avery was always either fighting against people with much more experience or who had greater numbers. She often was able to overcome, but most of the time, she found herself beaten and gasping by the end. Lothia would usually come in to give her some medical attention and patch her up before she quickly passed out.
On that day, everything seemed to be going quite well for Avery. Despite the difference in numbers, it seemed that her opponents weren’t as competent as she was, so she was winning the fight quite handedly. She just had to take her time and work to pick each of them apart one by one. However, things took a turn when a new group of children were let in to the arena to observe. Usually, this wouldn’t be anything for Avery. She quickly identified that these were not people that she knew, so she concluded that they were the latest haul of children.
What tripped her up was one of the young girls among them. She was much different. While all the others seemed a bit roughed up and angry much like the others that were usually brought in, she seemed sad, distraught. She was just as ragged as the rest of them, dressed in torn clothing, cuts and scrapes all over her. Her blonde and red hair was covered in dirt and a bit of blood. As Avery looked down in to her sad eyes, she was taken back by how beautiful they were. They were like small flames blazing within. Avery was frozen for a moment, staring at this beautiful new girl. Her admiration was cut short by a quick impact to the head that sent Avery reeling backwards and in to the ground, falling unconscious.
When she awoke, she found Lothia standing over her, a soft golden glow fading from his palms.
“Welcome back to the world of the living, Avery. That was quite a hit you took. Are you feeling alright? It’s not like you to be so careless.”
Avery shook her head, her eyes slowly refocusing to the world around her. “No I…” her eyes darted all around, searching for the girl. “Where did she go?”
Lothia gave her a confused expression as he helped her up to her feet. “Where did who go?”
“The girl… She had blond hair with red tips and really pretty red eyes…” Avery mused sadly as she realized the girl wasn’t here.
Lothia nodded and began to look around. When he turned back to inform Avery that he wasn’t really sure who she was referring to, he found that she had disappeared. After a few moments of frantically looking for her, he found her bolting out the door of the training grounds. He sighed softly and smiled.
As Avery ran through the halls, she continued bumping in to groups, looking at each of the members before running away and searching another group when she wasn’t there. After almost an hour of searching though, Avery was left empty-handed. She made her way to the dining hall, prepared for a boring dinner, but then she saw her. Sitting all alone in the corner of the dining hall, the girl with the blond hair was seemingly hiding from the rest of the room.
Avery picked up some dinner before quickly dashing over to the girl, taking a seat directly next to her. The girl practically leapt out of her seat at the sudden appearance of someone next to her.
“Hi there. I’m Avery~!” Avery offered eagerly.
“I’m Lilith…” the girl replied quietly.
Avery frowned, poking her lightly in the arm. “Why are you sitting all alone? There are tons of people in here and they’re all really cool.”
“I don’t wanna sit with them…”
“Why not?”
Lilith continued to eat her food without answering for quite a while. Avery continued to ask her questions all throughout the night, but she didn’t respond. However, Avery didn’t give up. But at the end of the night, Lilith returned to her room and Avery to hers, but she was determined. Every day for the next week, at every meal, Avery would sit with Lilith and try to ask her all kinds of questions about herself and her past, but each time she was met with nothing but silence. Avery remained undeterred and eventually, Lilith cracked.
On the seventh day, Lilith shouted, “Why are you so interested in me?!”
Avery sat there for a moment, utterly taken back by the sudden outburst from the girl that had been so quiet up until this point. Eventually, once she was able to compose herself, she gave Lilith the answer. “Well… It’s cause I think you’re neat. I don’t really have much reason for it other than that, but on the day you came in, I saw you and you looked so different from everyone else. Plus, your eyes are really pretty~!”
Lilith stayed silent for a while causing Avery to fear that perhaps she had unintentionally upset her, but then she spoke up.
“I’m not really used to people having any interest in me… Even my dad wasn’t…”
Avery sighed and quickly wrapped her arms around Lilith, giving her the best hug she could manage. “Well, I think you’re neat, so why don’t we become friends!”
Lilith chuckled softly and gave Avery a weak nod. “I-I guess that might be nice…”
---
Eight years later, Avery and Lilith were still really good friends. However, as the two of them had grown up, things had changed a little bit between them. Thanks to increasing pressure from Zeraph, Avery was able to spend less and less time with Lilith, but that only made her value their time together more, it providing her with some relief in the midst of all of the tough teaching that Zeraph was imposing upon her. However, it was getting hard for Zeraph to find stronger opponents for her to face. She had been growing at an unexpected rate and that had been leaving everyone in the dust. Even with most of the army fighting her all at once, they were slowly taking longer and longer to beat her and suffering increasing numbers of casualties.
However, in the midst of all of this, something had changed within Avery that she hadn’t been expecting. She had started to develop feelings for Lilith, feelings more than just the friendly platonic ones they had had for years. Avery didn’t really know what to do about it though, she had never had feelings for anyone else and her mother was no help, explaining that distractions like this would only stilt Avery’s progress and hinder her plans.
One day, Avery found it too much to take anymore. The feelings she had for Lilith only kept growing more and more intense and after going behind her mother to Lothia, she had received some rather helpful advice on courtship. When the time came for Avery to ask Lilith out on a date though, things began to fall apart. Avery was getting nervous and everything she had prepared to say was escaping her. As Lilith opened her door, Avery just stood there, unsure of what to say.
“Uh… Avery… Are you okay…?” Lilith asked, slightly concerned at the seemingly frozen girl standing in front of her.
“Oh… Uh… Yeah… I… uh… Do you wanna do some sparring tonight?” Avery managed to choke out. Internally, she was kicking herself for choosing such a stupid idea. Of course Lilith didn’t want to do sparring. She already had to do enough of it during the day and now she was being invited to do more of it during the time she was meant to have to herself, the time they would usually spend together talking and hanging out.
Much to her surprise, Lilith agreed and Avery almost melted in place as Lilith closed the door. She rushed back to her room and practically leapt through the roof from the excitement. She quickly got dressed, wearing a pair of purple lace lingerie with a cropped black tank top and a pair of jean shorts. She then had to spend and hour just waiting in her room, trying to contain her excitement over the fact that her and Lilith were actually going on a date.
An hour later, Avery practically flew to Lilith’s door, arriving exactly on time. When Lilith opened the door, Avery was once again taken back. Lilith was wearing a similar outfit to Avery, but her shorts were a good bit longer and her tank top wasn’t cropped. She was also wearing a pair of lightly torn leggings underneath of her shorts.
“Wow… Lilith… you look really good…”
Lilith blushed rather brightly, averting Avery’s gaze. “Oh… Th-Thanks… Y-You too, Avery…”
“You ready to go?”
Lilith nodded and Avery happily took her hand, racing the two down to one of the private training arena’s that she had reserved for the night. It was the furthest away, but that thankfully meant that people wouldn’t disturb them.
As they entered, they started off with a bit of light stretching before working in to some of the standard sparring exercises. While Avery moved with a great level of precision and confidence, the same could not be said for Lilith. She was fumbling every few moves, not able to keep up properly. Each time she fell, Avery would pick her back up and they would continue on.
“Why do you l-like training so much…?” Lilith asked as they ran through a kicking routine.
“I don’t really know. I mean, I’ve kinda been raised on it, ya know? I’ve been doing it since I was born, thanks to mum. But I also just thinks it’s pretty fun. It’s always been a pretty helpful way from me to express myself.”
Lilith didn’t reply. They continued on, but Lilith’s question sparked one for Avery. “Why are you always so scared and uncertain? I mean, you’re a dragon, but… you act like a mouse most of the time. Plus, you’re a fire apprentice. Aren’t you guys like, built for combat?”
Lilith sighed. “I don’t know… I guess I’ve just had b-bad experiences… My father wasn’t really… great…”
Avery nodded before launching a kick forward. Lilith seemed engrossed in thought and failed to recognize the kick in time, leading to her going flying backwards, collapsing to the mat. Avery’s eyes widened and she quickly rushed over to Lilith, dropping to the ground and inspecting her closely.
“Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry. Lilith, are you…” Avery stopped short as Lilith opened her eyes. Avery just sat there for a moment, starting deeply in to her beautiful eyes. She had seen them many times over the past eight years and every time, they were beautiful, but seeing them now, something just seemed to click inside of Avery. It was the first time she had seen them. Acting on instinct alone, Avery learned down and pressed her lips to Lilith’s. She expected some resistance, but the only thing she was met with was Lilith returning the passionate kiss.
They laid there like that for a little bit before Avery finally pulled back, her eyes wide with excitement. “Wow…”
Lilith’s face once again turned bright red. Avery giggled softly and smiled. “So… Uh… Does this mean you have feelings for me?” Avery asked eagerly.
“I-I mean… obviously… how could I not… W-Wait… was this a date…?”
Avery sighed and nodded sheepishly. “I swear, I wanted to ask you out to do something nicer, but when I saw you earlier, I just kinda froze up…”
Lilith’s blush grew brighter at the comment. “Funny… I-I think I’ve tried to ask you out about thirty times now and every single time I’ve just frozen up…”
“Aww… That’s kinda cute…”
“I-Is it…?”
Avery smiled widely and placed a soft kiss on Lilith’s cheek. “Absolutely.”
“O-Oh… Okay… Well uh… what do we do now…?”
“Well, I mean, I didn’t really think things would get quite this far, but since they have, why don’t we have sex?”
Lilith’s face turned practically as bright as the tips of her hair, but she just nodded and Avery smiled devilishly. She scooped up Lilith and carried her back to her room for a night of passion.
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